'ARRY'S GAME

Portsmouth have been going under for so long that it has seemed only a matter of time before they popped up in the Australian league, where the half moon on the club's crest could be reworked as a boomerang that, like bonkers spending, always comes back to hit you. Alas, neither that nor any other future look likely now, as the club's administrator has announced that Portsmouth FC will cease to exist on 10 August unless a last-gasp deal is struck with the seven remaining first-team players, all of whom are owed sums of money so vast that they would almost be enough to pay for a back-row seat at the forthcoming morning session of the men's Olympic table tennis first-round heats.

Unless the players agree to waive some or all of the lolly owed to them – which, in the cases of Kanu and Tel Ben Haim, is said to be around £3m each – then neither of the groups interested in rescuing the club will do so. "We will continue to do all we can to facilitate these deals but the club's future hinges on the willingness of certain players and their agents to sign up to compromise agreements that are affordable both in terms of the amount and timing of repayments," harked joint administrator Trevor Birch while tolling his bell for possibly the last time. "Unless we make significant progress on this front by 10 August, then we are likely to have no option other than to close the club."

Since negotiations have been at an impasse for much longer than the Fiver's attention span, it seems that the only thing that can save Pompey now is some sort of divine intervention, a selfless act of arbitration by a renowned miracle-worker with enough moral authority to inspire players to look deep into their hearts and think of the fans, the children, the civic imperative to put a humble city's heritage above further personal enblingment. Now if that doesn't sound like a mission for 'Arry Redknapp, then the Fiver knows nothing about football. And humour. And personal hygiene.

"I will be ringing Kanu today to see if there is anything I can do," Redknapp right-on-cued today before taking a moment to pay tribute to the bargain deals that he helped make happen during a three-year reign at Fratton Park that preceded financial meltdown. "I signed him [Kanu] for Portsmouth on a one-year contract and Tony Adams told me: 'You must be mad, he is finished.' Six years later, he is still there," hurrahed Redknapp before returning to the potential consequences of Kanu and co still being there. "Portsmouth has got to be saved," he tubthumped as wowed onlookers shielded their eyes from the dazzle of his golden armour. At least we think it was armour.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

"My life will not be complete until I'm at Villa Park. I want to be rooting on the claret and blue to a magnificent win over those suckers like Stoke City or Wolverhampton Wanderers or Queens Park Rangers" – Aston Villa fan Tom Hanks after watching the team beat Portland Timbers in a friendly. Surely if he just stopped making garbage like Larry Crowne and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close he would have time to do just that?

FIVER LETTERS

"Proof that men's football is better than women's football: during the European Championships the men's internationals invited ridicule by kicking off five to 10 seconds before the countdown to kick-off ended. Today the women's football kicks off two days before the countdown to kick-off is meant to finish. There are many things to criticise the men's game for (not that any spring to mind), but you have to respect their timekeeping" – Michael Hunt.

"Having read your overly sympathetic review of perma-halfwit Joey Barton's website (yesterday's Fiver), one can't help but think that the Fiver was simply reaching out for forgiveness for its own obvious inadequacies, while throwing in a dose of Bartonesque self-congratulation. Can you please confirm whether this review was a primer for an announcement that you are hiring the nitwit or are you simply confirming that you are his equally stupid long lost sibling?" – Nick Horn.

"Re: the utter futility of Soulmates advertising in the Fiver (Fiver letters passim). Next Monday will be the fourth anniversary of the first time my girlfriend and I met (for a drink, through Soulmates). This is roughly half the time I have been a Fiver subscriber, I would guess. While those four years have not all been unalloyed days of wonder, it's fair to say that neither of us regret taking up together, and without wishing to tempt fate it seems neither of us is planning to go our separate way at the moment. I suppose, then, according to your recurring assertion, I am exceptional, in that I met an erudite, sociable and friendly romantic who did want to go out with a Fiver subscriber. I do hope other Fiver readers haven't been put off from joining Soulmates by your rather negative view of the likely success of their subscription; I am, I should admit, a Cardiff City fan" – Barrie Francis.

GET A FREE £25 BET WITH BLUE SQUARE

JOIN GUARDIAN SOULMATES

We keep trying to point out the utter futility of advertising an online dating service "for interesting people" in the Fiver to the naive folk who run Guardian Soulmates, but they weren't having any of it. So here you go – sign up here to view profiles of the kind of erudite, sociable and friendly romantics who would never dream of going out with you. And sorry girls, Barrie Francis is taken.

BITS AND BOBS

Gareth Bale could be banned from playing for Tottenham – during the Olympics – after pulling out of Team GB's squad due to knack, only to miraculously recover and score in a pre-season game for Spurs against LA Galaxy last night. "It is a possibility we could ban these players if they are not at the disposal of the national team," grumbled Fifa ringmaster Sepp Blatter.

Norwich City are set to grab another player from Nasty Leeds with Robert Snodgrass in talks with the Canaries, who are also close to signing Sunderland defender Michael Turner.

Milan's vice-president Adriano Galliani has hinted that Madrid outcast Kaka could make a romantic return to San Siro. "Some loves never end, they may go away for a long time, but they always return," fawned Galliani.

And Thierry Henry's love affair with Arsenal knows no bounds, with the New York Red Bulls forward hoping to return to the Emirates for another loan spell or in a coaching capacity: "I would like to go back to England with Arsenal for sure ... coaching does interest me but I don't know what my talent is going to be after I have finished my career. But I will go back to Arsenal."

STILL WANT MORE?

Jonathan Wilson was a lonely, teenage broncin' buck, with a pink carnation and a pickup truck. But he knew he was out of luck, the day naivety, not football itself, died – Italy 3-2 Brazil, 5 July 1982.